Sarah: A Novel

by Marek Halter

  Abram invited him to sit down. “Speak, I’m listening.”

  “What I have to say is simple. You’ve already brought us to the point of famine once. I don’t want to have to suffer any more of your thoughtlessness. I want to take my flock and anyone who’ll agree to go with me and settle in a land of my own. And don’t tell me your god will stop me. I don’t give a damn about your god.”

  Melchizedek frowned. There were murmurs of disapproval.

  But Abram replied with a gentleness that surprised everyone. “I understand. I agree with you. Listen, Lot. You’re more than my nephew: You’re my brother, as your father was. You and your father Haran have a place in my heart. There will be no quarrel between us.”

  “Will you let me take some land for myself?” Lot asked, surprised.

  “Yes. You’ve made the right decision. It makes a lot of sense. Not only am I letting you take land, but I propose that you choose whichever pastures seem to you the best for your flock and those who will be your family. If you go left, I’ll go right. If you go right, I’ll go left.”

  Lot rose, even redder than when he had come in. He sized up the faces in front of him. “All right, then,” he said, defiantly. “I’ll take the land in the bend of the Jordan, to the east of Salem.”

  “But that’s the richest in all Canaan!” Melchizedek cried, offended. “It gets water all year long, and it’s as beautiful as a garden!”

  Abram smiled and nodded. “That means it’s a good choice,” he said.

  Melchizedek was about to protest again, but Abram prevented him. He stood up and took Lot in his arms. “I’m happy that my brother will be able to live in such a rich land.”

  “But think, Abram!” someone cried. “He’s taking your best lands from you, and his flock is a fifth the size of yours.”

  “I left the choice up to Lot,” Abram said, his arm still around his nephew’s shoulders. “He’s chosen, and I’m happy.”

  In the evening, the houses of Salem and the numberless tents pitched around the city buzzed with Abram’s generosity to his nephew Lot. Never before had they seen anyone give up his wealth with so much good humor. And as there was nothing to suggest that Abram was weak, his generosity had to be genuine. He became even more admirable in everyone’s eyes.

  The story soon reached Hagar’s ears, and she immediately told her mistress. Sarai could not restrain a smile. She, too, was touched by Abram’s generosity, but it was more than that. The fact that Abram had acted so impulsively, as he had once before, when he had carried her off from the temple of Ur, was something that made her feel a little less angry toward him.

  The next day, Abram, Melchizedek, and many others stood by the side of the road to watch Lot leave Salem at the head of his flock and those who had decided to follow him. Sarai appeared. Lot stared at the red veil, as if his eyes might burn right through the cloth. The general feeling was that Sarai was finally going to assuage his torment and show her face to the nephew who worshiped her.

  She approached him. “I’ve come to say good-bye.”

  Lot said nothing. He hesitated. With his sad mouth and his drink-ravaged features, he was a pitiful sight. Around them, everyone was hanging breathlessly on Lot’s reaction. Sarai waited for him to utter a word that would allow her to take him in her arms.

  It was not to be. “Who’s under that veil?” he sneered, with a harsh drunken laugh. “One of Pharaoh’s handmaids?”

  Sarai stepped back, her chest on fire, her cheeks burning with humiliation under the veil. She was about to deliver a stinging rebuke, but just then, she caught a glimpse of young Eliezer smiling broadly at Abram’s side. How happy he was, sensing the quarrel to come!

  She said nothing. She turned her back on Lot and the others and disappeared into her tent.

  Everyone noticed that Abram had not lifted his hand to stop her, nor opened his mouth to call her back.

  IN the days that followed, while his flock spread over the green pastures, Abram did again what he had done years earlier, before the drought. In the company of Eliezer, he went all over Canaan, from the hilltops to the valleys, from one altar to another, offering sacrifices and calling the name of Yhwh.

  Meanwhile, Sarai asked Melchizedek for a wagon and some men to help her pitch her tent to the south of Salem. She had discovered a long valley covered with terebinth and flowering bay trees, bordered by cliffs and high ocher rocks down which cool streams cascaded.

  Melchizedek told her it was a large space to be alone in, and asked her if it wouldn’t be better to wait for Abram to return.

  “I’m already alone,” she replied. “I’ve been alone for a long time now, in the tiny space of my own body. Abram is busy with his god. I suppose that’s a good thing. If he wants to talk to me, tell him I’m in the plain of Hebron. He’ll find me.”

  He found her less than a moon later. He arrived one day at high noon, while Sarai was baking loaves of bread stuffed with fragrant herbs and cheese. He was alone, without Eliezer. Hagar and Sarai heard him before they saw him, for he was shouting her name all through the valley.

  “Sarai! Sarai, where are you? Sarai!”

  Hagar climbed a slope to get a better view. “Something serious may have happened,” she said, worried.

  Sarai scanned the paths, the nearest copses, the banks of the streams that meandered through the pastures, but could see nothing.

  “Sarai!” Abram’s voice was still calling.

  “He could be hurt,” Hagar said.

  “Go to meet him,” Sarai ordered. “Follow the sound of his voice.”

  As Hagar moved away, Sarai put on her red veil. She saw Abram emerge from a grove of olive trees on the road leading to the Jordan. Hagar cried out and went to him. Abram began gesticulating curiously, like an excited child. As soon as they were quite close, Sarai could see that Abram was neither wounded nor in pain. He was out of breath but smiling.

  “Sarai! He spoke to me! Yhwh spoke to me!”

  He burst out laughing, as joyful and exuberant as a young man. He clapped his hands, and turned full circle.

  “He spoke to me! He called to me: ‘Abram!’ Just like he did in Harran: ‘Abram!’ ‘I’m here, God Most High,’ I said, ‘I’m here!’ I’d been waiting for him for so long. I’d been all over Canaan, calling his name!”

  Again he was shouting, laughing, weeping, wild-eyed like Lot in his cups. He took hold of Hagar’s waist and began to dance with her. She burst into a great, voluptuous laugh. Behind her veil, Sarai smiled. Drunk with his joy, Abram grew bolder. He left Hagar, took Sarai’s hand, put his other hand around her waist, and whirled her around. Twice, three times, his forehead bathed in sweat, singing, pirouetting as if his dance were accompanied by flutes. Hagar was still roaring with laughter. Sarai’s veil lifted, as did the bottom of her tunic. They danced until Abram tripped on a stone and fell headlong, pulling Sarai down with him.

  Hagar helped her to her feet.

  “That’s enough,” Sarai said. “Stop behaving like a child, you’re exhausted.”

  “I haven’t eaten or drunk anything since yesterday,” Abram laughed, puffing and blowing like an ox.

  “Come and sit down. I’ll give you something to drink.”

  “I must tell you what He said!”

  “It can wait until you’ve eaten and drunk. Hagar, bring cushions, water, and wine, please.”

  She went to fetch the loaves she had been baking, along with grapes and pomegranates picked on the hill of Hebron, and ordered Hagar to stretch a canopy above Abram, to give him shade. Then she sat down and watched him eat heartily, happy and smiling beneath her veil.

  When he had eaten his fill, Hagar brought a pitcher of lemon water and a clean cloth. He wiped his hands and face.

  “I’m listening,” Sarai said at last.

  “I wasn’t very far from here. I’d even been thinking of coming to see you. And then the voice was everywhere. Like in Harran. Just like in Harran, you remember?”

  “How can I remembe
r, Abram? I didn’t see your god, only you running, excited, like today.”

  Abram frowned with disappointment, and looked closely at the veil that prevented him from seeing the expression on Sarai’s face. He shook his head to dispel his annoyance. “It all happened very quickly. Yhwh said, ‘Lift your eyes, Abram! Look north and south, look east, look west to the sea. All the land you can see I give to you for the future, to you and your descendants. Your seed is like the dust of the world. Whoever can count the dust of the world will be able to count your seed. Arise, Abram! Fill this country, I give it to you!’”

  Abram’s eyes were shining. Then he gave a great laugh. Hagar laughed, too. But Sarai did not laugh.

  She did not move.

  Abram and Hagar fell silent, watching her chest swell.

  “‘The dust of the world!’” she said, and her veil trembled in front of her mouth. “‘Your seed, the dust of the world!’” she said again, her voice louder this time.

  Abram was already on his feet, guessing at the rage that was coming. “That’s exactly what Yhwh said,” he said, as if to protect himself. “‘Your seed is like the dust of the world!’”

  “Lies!” Sarai screamed, getting to her feet. “Lies!”

  She picked up the pitcher of water and threw it at Abram. He deflected it with his arm, and it shattered at Hagar’s feet. The handmaid sprang back to avoid it.

  “Lies!” Sarai cried again, with all her might.

  “Yhwh said so!” Abram retorted.

  “How do I know? Who else heard it apart from you?”

  “Don’t blaspheme!”

  “Don’t lie! And don’t mock me. How are you going to make your seed like the dust of the world? You can’t even have a son. You have to stoop to making that snake Eliezer your heir—”

  Abram kicked over the platter containing the remains of the meal. “Be quiet! You don’t know what you’re saying. You’re full of bitterness and resentment. Do you know what you look like with that ridiculous veil over your face?”

  “Oh, yes, I know, Abram, I know perfectly well! I’m invisible, just like your god. I don’t exist, I’m a nobody! A sterile woman who’s as dry as any desert! A woman who can be given and taken over and over again, without any life ever being born in her, without any mark, any wrinkle being left on her, ever! A nobody, do you hear! A nobody!”

  She had screamed so loudly that the word echoed through the valley of Hebron.

  She pressed the veil against her face. “You should be grateful for this veil, Abram. Because if your wife, who’s a nobody, ever took this veil off, she’d be a constant reproach to you.”

  “Yhwh has promised me offspring,” Abram cried, raising his arms to heaven, his eyes big with rage. “God Most High promised it, and it will come to pass. Everything He promises comes to pass!”

  Sarai’s derisive laugh was terrible to her. She leaped at Abram, gripped his hand, and placed it on her stomach. “Oh yes? How many years have you been spouting the same nonsense? My God Most High will work the miracle! Why hasn’t he already done it? Why hasn’t he made my belly swell, if he’s so powerful? Your seed is supposed to populate this land, is it? And whose womb is it going to come from, this people of yours? Are you going to make every woman in Canaan pregnant, Abram? They already look on you as a demigod! Well, why not? You could claim I’m your sister again. Lot was right, everyone will learn to live with it.”

  Abram growled, trying to pull his hand away from Sarai’s.

  She opened her fingers abruptly and hit him on the chest to push him away, then stood for a moment, catching her breath. “Why doesn’t your god care about me?” she cried. “Can you answer me that? No . . . Yhwh has spoken to you. He has promised, and you dance and laugh. While I weep. And hide! I’m empty. Empty and sick of these beautiful promises! Stop listening only to the noise of your own folly, Abram. Stop seeing what nobody else sees and face the truth: My womb is barren. You haven’t been able to fill it. Your god has no idea how to fill it, any more than you do. Even Pharaoh couldn’t manage it!”

  Abram’s roar was so fierce that Hagar rushed forward, thinking he was going to murder Sarai. But all he did was push her, propelling her to the side of the tent. She collapsed against it, while he ran off as fast as his legs would carry him.

  Solitude

  Sarai had lost Sililli and Lot. And now it seemed as though she had lost Abram, too.

  She had nobody left but Hagar. Hagar was sweet, attentive, and helpful, but she could not replace Sililli in Sarai’s heart. Hagar knew nothing of the past. She had no memory of Ur and Sumer. She could not remind Sarai of those happy times when Abram was in her bed every night and she still hoped that Abram’s god was capable of a miracle. Unlike Sililli, Hagar could not mock her or reprimand her or ply her with old wives’ tales at the slightest excuse.

  What made matters worse was that Hagar was bursting with youth. There was life in the graceful curve of her hips. It was obvious that she was quivering with desire, ready for a man’s seed as a flower is ready to receive the honeybee. One night of love, and Hagar would be pregnant. She would suffer the beautiful pain of childbearing. Whenever she thought about it, Sarai preferred to be completely alone rather than have her handmaid constantly in front of her eyes.

  And so, for moons on end, the only pleasures she had left, the only ones that still gave her a sense of well-being, were solitude and indifference.

  Sometimes, at night, she was haunted by dreams in which she was still a woman, making love to Pharaoh, and about to reach a peak of pleasure. She would wake with a bitter taste in her mouth, her body aching, the desire already gone. She would press her fists to her mouth to stifle her pain and her rage. Why couldn’t she weep until her body dissolved like a statue of salt and disappeared into the greedy earth? Even that was not granted to her. It was as Pharaoh had promised: “You, too, will have to live with the pain of our memory!”

  Then one morning, when she woke up, Hagar had news for her.

  “Abram has come to pitch his tents here. He’s decided to settle in the plain of Hebron.”

  She was telling the truth. The plain was filling with tents. The flocks spread as far as the eye could see. The blows of sledgehammers on the tent posts echoed through the air. A city of canvas was being born. By the time the sun had reached its zenith, the big tent with the black-and-white stripes had already been erected.

  “Settling near you,” Hagar said, “is Abram’s way of showing how much he cares about you. Would you like me to go down and welcome him on your behalf?”

  Sarai made no reply. She did not even seem to have heard.

  Abram could well fill the plain of Hebron with those he called his “people,” just as he called Eliezer of Damascus his son. What business was that of hers? In what way did that make good his god’s unkept promise? Neither her desire for solitude nor her indifference were going to be swayed by it.

  When Abram sent her three young handmaids as extra help, she turned them away. “You can go back where you came from,” she said, simply. “Hagar gives me all the help I need.”

  Abram next sent baskets of fruit, lambs for roasting, birds, rugs for the winter. Sarai refused these gifts as she had refused the handmaids. But this time, Abram ignored her refusal and ordered the gifts to be taken back and deposited outside her tent.

  Unrolling the rugs at the foot of Sarai’s bed, Hagar sighed with envy. “You’ve taught me a lesson. This is a good way to make sure your husband treats you well!”

  Sarai found this annoying. She became less open with Hagar. She got into the habit, when twilight approached, of climbing to the top of the hill of Qiryat-Arba, beneath the white cliffs that looked out over the plain.

  Here, her solitude was truly complete. It was a peaceful spot where, on spring days, the streams flowed in cascades and the sun released the scents of the sage and rosemary bushes. From here, if she was curious enough to do so, Sarai could follow what was going on in the camp. Occasionally, she would make out a fi
gure walking faster, and going farther, than anyone else. She had no doubt it was Abram.

  Most often, though, she would turn away her eyes to watch the flight of birds or the slow movement of the sun’s shadow across the plain.

  ONE day Hagar had another piece of news.

  “They say war is threatening the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. That’s where your nephew Lot lives. They say the people of Sodom have become so rich that the kings of the surrounding areas are jealous of them and want to seize their wealth.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I met Eliezer when I went to look for new goatskins for the milk. He’s a man now. Even though he’s still young, he sits at Abram’s side in the black-and-white tent, and is learning to be a chief.”

  “Did he tell you that?”

  “Yes. But the women down there assured me it’s true. They say he’s a fast learner, and he loves it.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Sarai said.

  “He’s good-looking, too. The girls laugh behind his back and squabble so that he’ll notice them. He’s like a young ram all proud of his new horns.” She laughed, with a pretense at mockery, but her voice betrayed her excitement. “I know you don’t like him,” she continued. “I don’t return his glances, but I can sense that he likes me. And the less I look at him, the more he likes me.”

  “Of course he likes you! What man doesn’t like you?”

  They both laughed.

  “Eliezer is a deceiver,” Sarai said, in a more serious tone. “Don’t be misled. Don’t think he’s going to lead Abram’s people one day. It’ll never happen.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’ll never be worthy.”

  Hagar threw her a sidelong glance, and continued with her work in silence, a sullen expression on her face.

  Sarai approached her and stroked the back of her neck, then placed her head on her shoulder. “Don’t think these are the words of a bitter woman. I’m not bitter. Even though I keep away from everybody and don’t want to be in any man’s arms, including my husband’s. It’s true I envy you. But my wish is to see your belly grow big with child. When that day arrives, I’ll hold your hand. In the meantime, keep away from Eliezer. As soon as he’s had you, he’ll forget you.”